Friday Flashers 3/8/13

Okay, so a couple of people pointed out that I got so excited about the cover art for LoveLetters Volume 2: Duty to Pleasethat I forgot to tease you with share a bit of my story from Love Letters Volume 1: Obeying Desire.

Allow me to remedy that right away. Here’s the official 4-1-1:

D is for Detained by Maggie Wells

He was the preacher’s son, her parents owned the local sex shop. Sherry Adams and Tyler Prescott’s attraction was forbidden when they were teenagers, but years later Deputy Tyler takes out his trusty handcuffs to show her just how good they could be together.

And a tidbit to tide you over:

“Freeze! Hands in the air!”

Her skull cracked against the counter. She cussed, lifting one hand to rub away the ache and whirling to confront her attacker. “Christ, wha—”

She gaped at the shadow in the doorway. The peaked crown of his hat brushed the door casing, and his shoulders filled the breadth of the opening. Backlit by the blistering summer sun, the guy looked enormous.

“Hands in the air,” he repeated.

Astounded by the sight of a gun pointed in her direction, it took a full minute for her to recognize the voice. She blinked but the rest of her motor skills seemed stunned by the blow. Her hands inched toward the ceiling. “Tyler?”

“Sherry?” Instantly, he lowered the gun. His jaw almost scraped the filthy linoleum floor.

“Hey.” The little finger wave made her look stupid and awkward, but making a fool of herself over him was nothing new. The minute Tyler Prescott glanced in her direction, the stupid and awkward came pouring out of her.

“Sherry…Sherry Garcia Adams.”

She’d like to claim the name was a remnant of a misunderstood youth, a leftover taunt hurled by a guy who hadn’t outgrown his teenaged prejudices. Unfortunately, the man might have been reading her birth certificate verbatim. She had to be the only girl in the world whose own mother serenaded her with “Truckin’” each year instead of “Happy Birthday.”

Still, when Tyler Prescott said her ridiculous name in his down and dirty, burrowing twenty-gazillion-leagues-under-her-skin drawl…well, a little thrill chased down her spine. And if the fact that he remembered her name at all wasn’t enough to get a girl all squealy-giggly, the pseudo-reverence in his tone had the tiny hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention.

She assumed he faked the awe in his voice. Sherry had no idea why the chosen son of Serenity would be impressed with her presence.

“Hey, Tyler.” She lowered her half-raised hands and scraped her damp palms over the seat of her cargo shorts, trying to ignore her throbbing skull. He stared at her as if she were an alien beamed down from the planet Stupefy. “Uh, how’ve you been?”

Another brilliant question, but he stood stock-still in the doorway staring at her and it was making her nervous. Tyler Prescott was a paragon in their tiny town, and paragons made her twitchy. In high school, he’d been the captain of the football team and class president four years running. The resident handsome-as-sin preacher’s kid. Every town had one.

She flashed back to those interminable Sundays when she’d slip out of bed early to sneak into town to go to church. Tyler was one of the few people in Serenity who’d treated her like she was a normal person and not the girl their classmates crowned Porn Queen.